Zero One Automotive Raises $170M to Build the “Tesla of Heavy Trucks”

New-energy heavy truck startup Jiangsu Zero One Automotive Technology Co., Ltd. has secured RMB 1.2 billion ($170 million) in a new funding round.

The round was jointly led by CATL-backed Puhua Capital, autonomous driving company Momenta, and NIO Capital, with participation from multiple institutional investors.

This marks the company’s second financing within six months. In mid-2025, Zero One Automotive completed a Series A round of RMB 500 million ($70 million), bringing the total raised across the two rounds to more than RMB 1.7 billion ($240 million).

Founded in 2022, Zero One Automotive develops new-energy heavy trucks alongside autonomous driving technologies.

The founding team includes Huang Zehua, former co-founder of TuSimple; Zhang Hongsong, former general manager of SANY Heavy Truck; and Zhang Wei, former executive director of Sinotruk. The company currently has nearly 300 employees.

Since its founding, the company has launched two heavy truck models—Jingzhe and Xiaoman. By the end of 2025, cumulative deliveries had reached nearly 1,600 units, with sales in the second half of the year increasing nearly 300% quarter-on-quarter, making it one of the fastest-growing companies in the new-energy heavy truck sector.

Huang believes autonomous heavy trucks must be built on a fully redesigned vehicle architecture. Zero One Automotive has therefore developed key components in-house, including battery-chassis integration, electric drive axle systems, and thermal management architecture.

The company aims to sell 5,000 trucks in 2026, which it expects will allow it to reach break-even.

Looking further ahead, Huang predicts that fully driverless autonomous trucking could become mainstream around 2030, with Zero One Automotive aiming to become “the Tesla of heavy trucks.”

Source: 36Kr